British Council

Theatre of War is an essay on how to represent war, performed by former enemies. British and Argentinian veterans of the Falklands war come together to discuss, rehearse and re-enact their memories 35 years after the conflict.

A profile and interview of director, Lindsay Anderson.

Butt-sniffing action abounds as five otherwise ordinary members of the public get in touch with their primal instincts.

In the run up to the 1945 general election, the film focuses on the electoral race of one of the 640 local constituencies in Britain, that of Kettering in Northamptonshire.

As part of the 2017 UK-India Year of Culture, the British Council and British Film Institute share a unique collection of films documenting the sights and culture of a bygone India. Filmed between 1899-1947, and preserved in the BFI National Archive since then, these rare films capture many glimpses of life in India, from dances and markets, to hunts and pageantry.

A documentary on modern British farming.

Short part of BFI collection "This Working Life: Steel".

An evocative and imaginative exploration of the racial tensions in Othello and how the themes in Shakespeare's play still resonate today.

Cunenk grew up as a girl trapped in a boy’s body. She could not wait to leave her village and become a performer.

The growing ambition of Julius Caesar is a source of major concern to his close friend Brutus. Cassius persuades him to participate in his plot to assassinate Caesar but they have both sorely underestimated Mark Antony.

Rufus is a child with an extraordinary obsession: a burning, inþamed desire for anything red. Driven by this impassioned, scarlet fixation, which he can neither control nor understand, he shifts through life in a whirlwind of redness, entirely in the hands of his bizarre compulsion.

Miranda's Letter takes as a starting point the 'missing women' in Shakespeare, in this instance, The Tempest, and imagines what Miranda's mother would have wanted to say to her daughter. Commissioned as part of Shakespeare Lives 2016.

Behind-the-scenes documentary about the making and broadcasting of pedagogical radio shows on the BBC.

This short film features two atmospheric scenes from Shakespeare's famous tragedy: Act II Scene 2, the murder scene, and Act V Scene 1, with Lady Macbeth and that damned spot. The wonderful Wilfrid Lawson and Cathleen Nesbitt make such a fine murderous duo in the first scene that one wishes the whole play had been filmed. At least we have the sleepwalking scene as compensation, where Nesbitt is joined by Felix Aylmer and Catherine Lacey. This is one of two short films produced under the umbrella title Famous Scenes from Shakespeare

Part of the archive's Junior Biology series, this study of maize is aided by diagrammatic, time-lapse, and microscopic footage.

The manufacture of cables for transmitting electric power is shown. Copper bars are rolled and drawn into wire, which is twisted into strands, and covered for insulation and protection with layers of rubber, lead, cloth and paper. The completed cables are then given high-voltage tests before being dispatched from the factory.

Britain's check to the German drive for world domination. The Ministry of Information requested that the film should be withdrawn as it was considered too direct propaganda, and that overseas audiences would have trouble following it. However, it had already been shipped across the colonies and ended up being one of the most popular of the British Council's films - both in the UK and overseas.

A young man learns to become a farmer, keen to show the integration of traditional farming with modern science and education.

A stately film about the history of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, with a focus on the architecture and individuals buried there, and the impact of the Blitz.

A brisk visual summary of the changing faces of the English town throughout the ages, from the ancients and their hill-forts to the Second World War -- enlivened by the appearance of ghostly denizens to defend their eras against the narrator's various strictures!